STUDENTS of Honiara Senior High School (HSHS) in Central Honiara successfully staged a stunning showcase of the country’s rich diverse cultural heritage during their cultural day event at their school hall last Thursday.
The school has an annual cultural day program aimed helping students to conserve their cultural identity.
With a deep sense of cultural pride and enthusiasm, students, who organized themselves into ten major ethnic groups, performed traditional and contemporary dances in front of parents and family members, teachers, friends and a large crowd who were drawn to by the cultural celebration.
The ethnic groupings were Guadalcanal Province, Central Malaita Region which comprised Kwara’ae and Langalanga students, North Malaita Region which comprised students from the northern region, Southern Malaita Region which comprised students from Kwaio, Are’are and Small Malaita, Makira-Ulawa Province, Central Islands Province, Isabel Province and Micro-Poly which comprised students from Renbel Province, Malaita Outer Islands, Tikopia in Temotu Province and the country’s Micronesian communities.
The theme of HSHS this year’s program was: ‘Conserving Our Culture, Our Heritage’.
The show was judged by a panel of judges who were stunned by the level of this year’s performances and found their task a difficult one.
Nevertheless, the judges ultimately settled for Central Malaita as the third prize winners in the contemporary dance category, Guadalcanal Province as the second prize winners and Southern Region as the first prize winners.
For the traditional dance category, the third prize winners were Micro-Poly, the second prize Winners were Guadalcanal Province and the first prize winners were Isabel Province.
All other cultural groupings that unable to make it to the top three awards of the two prize categories were each awarded a consultation prize of $600 cash.
The Chairlady of the Cultural Day program, June Buke of the Social Studies Department, said she was very proud of the students’ performance because most of them were born and raised in Honiara but were keen to learn about their cultures.
Madam Buke said at first students were shy about participating in the cultural day program but through the encouragement of teachers, they organized themselves into their ethnic groupings and practiced making the annual program as success.
“So, to me, I am very proud of my students because they were able to move forward with their cultures, which aligns with the theme of the program ‘Conserving Our Culture, Our Heritage’.
“The importance of this Cultural Day program is to preserve our cultures because without our cultures, we will not really know about ourselves because our cultures are our identity.
“They are our identity wherever we go. So, I think this program is really important because a lot of influences are rising in the world today like tiktok and facebook, which take away a lot of the time from our youths and this is quite sad.”
Madam Buke said by organizing this kind of cultural program, they are influencing students to know more about their cultures. “It’s like we are reconnecting them to their cultural roots.”
She said she wants every student to be proud of their cultures and preserve them because one’s cultures safeguards her/his footpath, adding that cultures have their values just like Christianity.
“I want to remind every student to always remember their cultures because Solomon Islands is a culturally-diverse country and this is something that we should be proud of,” Madam Buke added.
The HSHS 2024 Cultural Day was sponsored by Our Telekom.
Madam Buke expressed the school’s acknowledgement to Our Telekom for its support toward the program.
“Our Telekom is our major sponsor. They responded very quickly to our request. This shows their commitment to sponsoring this kind of program to promote and preserve our cultures amongst our new generation and so we are very thankful to them for their sponsorship.”
By IAN LADDS OSO
Solomon Star, Honiara
